Attack On Titan: Go Big Or Go Extinct
by Confused-Blue-Dragon
Summary: When the cold times arrive, the entire military is suddenly overthrown by an unknown force hellbent upon humanity's extinction. Stranded beyond the Walls, Eren and his comrades struggle to stay warm in the cold as supplies dwindle, but the discovery of a group of gigantic beasts that grow to sizes greater than any Titan may be the key to reclaiming the city and averting extinction.
1. Prologue

_**Attack On Titan: Go Big Or Go Extinct  
**_

_Written by: The-Confused-Blue-Dragon_

_Prologue…_

The autumn night sky blew softly as scattered clouds glided overhead, beams of lunar light streaking down from the heavens above and lighting up the surface of the grasses and shrubs on the land, and the sand and water of the neighbouring inland sea to the east. Leaves from nearby trees flickered slightly in the wind, making gentle rustlings in doing so as small animals of the night scurry around in the undergrowth, minding their own businesses while on their own neverending quests in the search for food, such as a little field mouse harvesting grass seeds while stopping from time to time to scan for any potential predator looking to make it their potential meal.

Then, a soft thump in the distance puts the little thumb-sized rodent on alert, its eyes looking in every direction and ears twitching, straining to detect the slightest sound of possible danger.

Another sound catches its ears, this time a soft but harsh rustling sound nearby. The mouse turns its gaze to the direction of the sound, ready to flee at the slightest sound or sight. A few seconds tick by, and with nothing but the sound of a gentle wind, a full moon lighting up the surrounding environment and the scents of wild plants filling its senses, the little field mouse returns to filling its cheek pouches with grass seeds.

***BOOM!***

A horrific crash sends the nervous little animal scattering for cover, and just in time too as a huge human-like foot crashes down from above, its owner appearing to be an abnormally large pot-bellied human, although that is where the similarities end as this being was no less than ten metres tall with a very large head that looks as if it will fall off its shoulders. Apparently clothless, this human-like creature's mouth and hands were splattered red with dried blood, first glances would think this was the result of a nasty brawl but an experienced eye knows better…

For this creature was a Titan; a ravenous humanoid abomination which desired to feast upon human flesh for no apparent reason, not even in the case of hunger nor reproduction as they had no sexual organs and its kind had survived for over a hundred years without needing to eat humans as a food source, otherwise there would be far fewer Titans and with a mostly equal number of humans.

Normally, Titans would be lacking any form of intellect and propelling off of instinct, but this one was one of a small number of Deviant-type Titans - the ones that are naturally more dangerous than most - and this Titan's recent victim was or once _was_ a 16-year-old girl who was serving with the Survey Corps; a military branch dedicated to scouting, intercepting and in many cases falling a Titan whenever necessary. Although this one had been outdone by her foe and became one of countless many unlucky soldiers to become nothing more than mere monster food, and furthermore another life lost and a blow to her squad and regiment.

The ten-metre tall Titan stops a few metres from the edge of the sandy beach, sensing a disturbance far out to sea. Visually scanning the waves for anything that may be another tasty morsel stuck in a bad situation, the Titan scratches its enlarged belly after engulfing its many victims of its attack alongside many other Titans, although a fair number of its brethren were slain by troops of the Survey Corps, yet nearly double the number of soldiers lost their lives in that engagement, though having been around a few good years back the blood had long since dried on and stained its teeth and skin around the mouth.

Huffing an exhale, the Titan starts turning around to find another unfortunate human to greedily devour, but before it could take a couple of steps the sudden sounds of bird wings flapping and a huge collection of panicked squawks catches the creature's attention far out towards the mass expanse of water, and overhead flew mass flocks of seagulls flying inland with great haste, as if something akin to a supernatural force had spooked them from their nightly slumber.

Looking back out to sea again, the Titan spots a strange hump of water traveling at a fair distance and heading for the beach, and right behind that was another hump only this one was at least three or four times larger. The speed this peculiar thing was going at was fairly fast, too fast to be a human craft of any sorts, but the Titan can sense an unfamiliar presence with this, and probably the reason why those seagulls flew off in a panic.

Hoping to scare this thing off, the Titan unleashes an ear-ringing bellow which sounded like something from an Aliens movie for a good seven or so seconds, yet this alien object was undeterred and continued their present course directly for the beach.

The Titan bellows another roar, this time more louder and equally more bloodthirsty than the last, and yet the round abnormalities of water remained unmoved, like a ship on a collision course with no crew to stop its inevitable grounding.

Then to its surprise they both depress back into the water, the only evidence that was left behind were a small collection of waves created by the humps of water.

Grunting in satisfaction that those strange things have now disappeared, it begins turning away from the beach in search of more humans to greedily devour, the ground shaking from every step this creature took.

Then before it began to enter the forest, a horrendous sound of a crash followed by something enormous pounding into the ground rang out from close behind it, followed by what sounded like a waterfall. Turning around, the Titan looked back to see what that huge crash was, only to see a colossal shape rising from the sea as a shadow creped over the Titan, which was now looking at this thing with some curiosity.

Apart from the vast quantities of water dripping off of it, it was all quiet. Too quiet.

Then, as if it was coming from all directions, a low resonating throaty rumble echoed out, rapidly increasing in volume. The very ground vibrating while this object was still continuing to grow in size.

Then an intimidating growl of identical volume rang out, putting the Titan on alert as this thing was now seen as an enormous animal of some kind, unfortunately the night-time light could only allow the silhouette of this creature and nothing more.

Then, two glowing yellow dots on either side of what seems to be its head lit up, revealing to be the creature's eyes as they continued to stare down the not-so-ferocious Titan with unknown intent.

Then, before the Titan could even blink, it struck; a massive elephant-like foot of unprecedented size crashes down from high up above, transforming the Titan from a 10-metre tall terror of humanity into nothing but a meaty pancake in less than a second. This was so sudden the aberration had barely any time to react to such an attack, let alone one that was provoked.

The owner of the enormous limb that squashed the Titan like a bug looked on in curiosity. Never before has it ever encountered a creature that could evolve to become so damn butt-ugly, even to the point where it looked as if it was practically brain dead. Then it realized something as it tilted its massive head; maybe this creature, along with the rest of its kind had evolved to be as energy-efficient as possible, but the smell of blood it picked up from the Titan in the seconds before it was crushed underfoot had triggered an instinctive defence mechanism that was hard-wired into every animal alive.

And it did what it did not only out of instinct, but what was far more important was the reason it had arrived here from far-away lands; a migration, and this creature wasn't the only one to make this journey for many other members of its kind were heading for the same destination as the one here. A large majority of this urge to travel was inherently hard-wired into the very being of its mind ever since when it was little more than an infant, but that age was so many countless moons ago; nowadays, it was a full-grown giant.

The steam the dead Titan's remains was producing was enough to obscure its vision, but other than that it posed no threat to the colossal beast despite it being hot enough to burn away skin. After a few minutes of observing the steam began to ease off slightly, and from every part of the Titan's body, from the fingers to the toes, was now nothing more than a singed pancake inside a two-metre deep circular footprint.

The giant animal takes in this new level of information, for if it was to adapt to what this new land could offer, it would have to learn as fast as possible on how its new neighbors would behave, even after death, and this posed a new challenge; given its sole reason for it being here it would have to make sure these oddly shaped bipeds didn't pose any threat to the survival of both itself and its brethren.

But all was not a problem in the slightest for it was an animal of truly colossal proportions, and although this one was now nothing more than a singed pile of decaying flesh and splintered bone it would somehow find this creatures' kind to be a possible threat to any offspring should it happen to reproduce.

The creature's other mammoth foot came to rest with a loud earth-shaking thump beside the one now resting beside the Titan corpse, and towering high enough to oversee the trees toward its new home, it knew this was going to be a paradise in this vast and varied land. The only downside to moving here was that this place literally reeked of the scent of its less than fortunate victim's own kind, but as it was a true herbivore there was nothing to fear for the more vegetation this land offered, the better it will feed.

As it scoured its new home, more sounds of crashing and billowing water emanated from behind, and with them emerged more of this giant's own kind; no less than seven rising from the ocean's depths after its leader and all of them slightly smaller than the behemoth standing before them, and the size of the group was still growing as more and more of these prehistoric mega-beasts emerged from deep beneath the waves.

Though given their relative size these creatures were at least the size of a small skyscraper, and according to the square-cube law, these leviathans shouldn't even exist at all. Yet they defied the rules Mother Nature had imposed upon Planet Earth, and have survived for many millennia with very few problems, the only one being is a reliable source of food but now this issue was officially non-existent.

Giving off deep vibrating rumbles through the ground as a method of communication, the group of giants begin their march into their new home; massive elephant-like limbs and feet leaving footprints as deep as a full-grown man is tall and around seven times as wide. Any tree that happened to be standing in their way were relentlessly pushed over as if they were mere useless boxes stacked atop one another, the sheer bulk of these giant creatures topping the strength of any tree in this regional area many times over, and only such trees big enough to defy these law-breaking leviathans were those found in the Forest of Giant Trees many hundreds of miles from here.

And that is where they were heading to, though this was the final leg of their migration it was still was going to take a long while yet to get to their destination.

For all that resided in this land, they were going to get a nasty shock:

A new breed of monster was in town.

**_To Be Continued..._**

**_Author's Side-Note:_**

**_If you have read this opening chapter then you'll notice some major changes to the storyline._**

**_First off: I have decided to retire a proposal for a 'super-predator' for another story and have replaced that with an even larger monster design, which I may choose to publish an image onto my DeviantART page sometime in the future.  
_**

**_Second: The biggest issue I have had with my Fanfiction writing is writer's block, and since I was having so much trouble trying to map out how my newest story was going to plan out I had decided to redo the story piece by piece whenever I have the time._**

**_And lastly: My design for my 'super-predator' plus the original storyline somehow adopted a 'Godzilla' type storyboard, and since I am not too keen on creating almost crossover-type stories I am reaching out into making this a true and totally original story._**

**_Until next time!_**


	2. Chapter 1: Three Years Later

_**Attack On Titan: Go Big Or Go Extinct  
**_

_Written by: The-Confused-Blue-Dragon_

_Chapter 1: Three Years Later…_

A gentle breeze blew across the great white walls of the massive kingdom, sending many people working at the top a gifting chance to cool down in the warm sun. Even though the cold times were slowly approaching with ever cooler winds from far up north, that was to signal that lean times were on their way for the inhabitants of the outlying territories as food will soon be in short supply when winter fully sets itself in, but for now things were still plentiful all round.

For one person at the top of the wall, he was so deep in his thoughts that all that he felt was the mere breeze blowing by his hair, jacket and cloak.

Perched upon the edge of Wall Rose surrounding Trost District and looking out far into the distance of the long abandoned territories of Wall Maria, sat a boy of no less than 18 years of age, with fair-tanned skin, sharp teal-green eyes and short dark brown scruffy hair that reached down to just above the eyebrows, and wore the standard attire for his Regiment: a short light-brown jacket bearing the insignia of a white feathered wing over a feathered blue wing, a dark green cloak bearing that same insignia, jet black boots, white pants and shirt. A series of straps around his legs and torso were inter-connected to a pair of large metal sheaths carrying no less than four steel blades each, one strapped to either side of the thighs. On top of both sheaths were one one-metre long highly pressurized gas canisters, essential for every soldier to circumnavigate between buildings and through thick forests at great speeds, and mounted directly onto his belt were two wired hook launchers, one on either side of his hips, and they were nonetheless among the most important of the entire Omni-Directional Mobility Gear.

This person was none other than Eren Yeager: Headstrong and compassionate yet arrogant, short tempered and impulsive, he has been an official member of the Survey Corps for a good three years and has undoubtedly risen through the ranks to become Squad Commander; a position he has no doubts about as those within his designated squad are none other than the very same motley crew of friends he trained with back at the academy, although not all of them have managed to make it to this point.

For just a day before the cadets could graduate to their wished Regiments of choice, a monstrous fiend had suddenly reappeared out of thin air after five years; one that even Eren himself vowed to slaughter amongst its brethren and the very same behemoth that allowed his home of Shiganshina District to be destroyed by a vast horde of Titans which in turn forced Humanity to abandon the outermost wall defending the outlying territories encased by Wall Maria.

Eren's scowl deepened at the memory; no less than ten metres taller than the Great Walls, entirely skinless and all muscle, steam venting from almost everywhere on his very body. Yes, he knew very well who he was thinking about.

The Colossal Titan, who also went by the human persona as Bertolt Hoover, the very monster who allowed for the needless deaths of tens if not hundreds of thousands of human lives thanks to him, and to become friends with the traitorous bastard of a mass-murderer made him sick to the core.

His entire squadron during the opening Battle of Trost, save for his best friend, were all but annihilated; devoured one by one as the Titans took advantage of the surprise ambush whom they were all trained together to fight against. Eren was one of those unfortunate victims, losing his left leg after a Titan pounced from below and biting it clean off, and losing his left arm after reaching out to his childhood companion to then being swallowed whole and ending up in the very belly of one such beast.

He regained consciousness moments before sinking into the stomach acid, and that was when he became the very creature he loathed and swore to slay: A Titan, but not just any regular Titan but one whose name would be official and known by all who knew, the Rogue Titan. In a dream-like state, he single-handedly eliminates as many as twenty Titans laying siege to Trost Headquarters, even defeating a similarly tall abnormal that ambushed and devoured one of his squad-mates with sheer primal rage and ferocity before collapsing and finally emerging from the fallen beast.

He nearly escaped possible death after he, Armin and Mikasa were spared by the unconventional idealist commander of the Garrison, Commander Dot Pixis, as he prevented the nervous Captain Kitts Woerman from firing the nearby cannons upon the trio. Thankfully, Commander Pixis saw Eren's unique shape-shifting abilities as a tactical advantage and, despite a hiccup at the start to the operation, the mission to retake Trost was a success.

Despite the successful counterattack, many lives were lost defending Eren as he, in his Titan form, hoisted an enormous boulder to the gate that the Colossal Titan had breached earlier on. And just in time too as the infamous Scouts had arrived to reinforce the Garrison Regiment and to eliminate the remaining Titans still running loose in the District.

Yet despite being the savior of the city, Eren found himself arrested by the Military Police and held in the dungeons underneath the courthouse, who he finally managed to meet were the two of the best commanding officers of the Scout Regiment; Commander Erwin Smith and Captain Levi Ackerman. Later he was greeted by the Survey Corps' leading scientist, Hange Zoe, who Eren amongst other Survey Corps soldiers, personally thought to either have a couple of screws loose or has lost a portion of her sanity during her time as a Scout.

Soon after, he was brought up to the courthouse where he was presented to the judge, who was none other than Commander-In-Chief Darius Zackly, the top boss of all three military divisions, also oversaw the operations of all three military branches. The MP's wanted him dead as they feared he was a danger to the remaining populace and that such news spreading all around may trigger a civil war in which they cannot afford, whereas the Survey Corps brought up another idea for Eren; assimilate him into their ranks and help him understand on how to properly harness his powers. Naturally both sides plus the leader of the religious Wall Cult, Pastor Nick, ended up bickering over this debate until Eren cried out for both sides to shut up and called them cowards, this resulted in Levi beating up the Titan-Shifter right there and then in full view of the entire courtroom, even saying that he needed to be taught a lesson like a dog.

In the end, Zackly chose Erwin's proposal, and to his friends' relief Eren was spared the death penalty, much to the delight of the Scout Regiment to have a new beacon of hope joining their ranks.

Later that evening, Hange began pestering about what the physical pain Levi inflicted upon him felt like, and also revealing that she had salvaged one of Eren's teeth that fell out as he was beaten up. To see which tooth it was Eren allowed Hange to take a look, but to her surprise a new tooth was in the old one's place, again showing Eren has the capability to regenerate lost body parts even though not intending to do so.

As he learned the ropes of being a Scout, he finds a majority of his friends chose the same Regiment as he has, while the rest who have survived the struggle for Trost had chosen the other two divisions. Several days later after getting some idea on how his Titan powers worked, the band of friends embarked on their first expedition beyond the walls and quickly learn just how hostile the outside world is. While his friends took to the trees for safety, Eren was being pursued by an unusual Abnormal Titan, this one being a skinless 14-metre tall Female Titan, who had demonstrated incredible intelligence, stamina and combat skills, even wiping out Eren's escorts before defeating him in battle when he faced her as a Titan.

But as he was being carried away in the Female Titan's mouth, Mikasa and Levi came to the rescue and he was saved while his rescuers relentlessly attacked the Female in all directions, Levi's blistering speed and devastating hit-and-run slash attacks effectively making mincemeat out of the fearsome opponent.

Eren awakens on the way back from the deployment, and learning that he was going to be taken into custody of the Military Police, he instantly learns that the expedition had been a failure with so many lives lost, and uncontrollably breaks down into tears.

But it turns out later on that it was Annie Leonhart, one of his friends who had chosen to join the Military Police, who was the Female Titan all along and the very one responsible for the deaths of Eren's squad-mates. Confused and already delirious from his first expedition, his companions nonetheless forged out a plan to trap her in the city of Stohess under the guise that he was going to be executed, and after some convincing the plan works as his childhood friends sent the signal to other Scouts lying in wait for her, and she is pinned down and restrained.

But she had a trick up her sleeve as she had suspected something like that would happen: her ring had a spike, and through self-inflicting an injury she transformed into the Female Titan, and a battle takes place trying to take her down but Annie is too strong even with Eren's sister aiding in the charge.

Eren joins the crazed melee, this time as a Titan, and both Shifters slugged it out in the city of Stohess as troops from both the MP's and the Survey Corps try to keep pace with both as they headed for the Wall. Annie attempted to flee over the Wall to no success as she is brought down, but as soon as she is forced from her Titan body she cocoons herself into a large ball of near-indestructible crystal that not even human weaponry could dent. In the end it was decided to place Annie underground and that is where she remains; chained up and guarded round the clock.

A while after that, it was also thought that it was only Eren and Annie who had Titan-Shifting abilities, as it has been revealed that after a night-time Titan attack on a castle he and his squad were staying at, Reiner soon went into a mental breakdown and told Eren that he was the Armored Titan and Bertolt was the Colossal Titan respectively. A short time after, Eren, as a Titan, fought Reiner who was also in his Titan form on the outer side of Wall Rose, and Eren was kidnapped by the two Shifters alongside Ymir, who was also a Titan herself.

A day or so after that event, the group of four were intercepted by Commander Erwin and a large force, which were luring a number of Titans to the Shifter's position. Reiner was forced to fight back, but even in his alternate form was slowly becoming overwhelmed by sheer numbers, and Hannes, Eren's friend and ally who previously served with the Garrison Regiment, had fallen victim to the same Titan that devoured his mother all those years ago; the Smiling Titan.

With nowhere to go, Eren's sister confesses her feelings to him and just as she leans in possibly to kiss him, he subconsciously directs all Titans to converge and attack the Smiling Titan, swarming the abomination within seconds. This opened the window for the Scouts to escape with Eren, although the three Shifters managed to escape the battle.

Sometime afterwards, Captain Levi and his squad become wanted criminals after false accusations of the leader of the Wall Cult, Pastor Nick, was murdered and the entire Scout Regiment faces decommissioning due to this. This forced Eren and his companions to go into hiding until this situation was resolved, but as he and one of his friends, Krista, now revealing herself to be Historia Reiss, were soon kidnapped by an unmarked squad under the command of Kenny Ackerman who was working for the Military Police. Both were bounded and, due to Historia's unique abilities, Eren now knew why he was so deeply involved in this plot; his father was a Titan Shifter, and he had turned Eren into a Titan and had devoured his father so he could obtain a mysterious power that only the Reiss bloodline could control, and all Historia had to do was not to fully consume Eren but to ingest his spinal fluid.

After some last-minute debate, Eren offers to sacrifice himself to Historia before she supposedly injected herself with a serum that turned her into a Titan, learning that if she wins, humanity will be free of the Titans, and if he wins then nothing will change.

As the rescue party fought their way to Eren and Historia, a sudden flash of light at the end of the cavern concluded the transformation of a Titan, forcing Levi and Mikasa to make speed to his former companion's lair like jets on full afterburner. However the bright light from the transformation was due to what they had feared:

Just as Historia was about to let the needle penetrate through her skin, her mind was suddenly flooded with memories of the past three years at the Academy, and one of those was a flashback involving Ymir reminding her that she had the freedom to choose her own path. That settled her choice; by throwing the needle away and spilling its contents, she had flipped Rod over her head after he had grabbed her shoulders.

Retreating to Eren with Rod's bag in tow, she proceeded to unlock his restraints but when she had managed to undo one of his cuffs, she was thrown back by a flash of light, a blast of heat and a jet of steam from when Rod, ingesting what was left of the Titan serum, transformed into one of the most nightmarish of all Titans; in fact one so big it was thought that this one was twice the size of the Colossal Titan itself.

With Squad Levi arriving to release Eren from his chains moments before a chunk of the ceiling crashed onto where their captive friend was just mere seconds ago, but with Squad Levi trapped between the new Titan and the ceiling caving in from above, Eren placed the blame on himself for getting everyone into this mess, but after some convincing by Levi and spotting a small bottle containing another serum, and somehow finding a fleeting array of hope Eren took the bottle in his hands and ingested the serum inside, and Eren transformed once again before his comrades' eyes.

But amongst the transformation, Eren had somehow created a completely solid Titan form that was now holding up the no longer collapsing cave.

Thankfully, he had recovered his strength from this a short while later and was informed by his friends that the Titan was on the move and was heading to Orvud District; one of Wall Sina's outlying Districts, and Squad Levi plotted in a pursuit course to intercept. It was then realized that the Titan, already being so big it's limbs were only strong enough to allow it to a slow crawl, was some kind of abnormal and although Eren and a few other Scouts attempted to draw its attention away it was clear that the Titan was honing in onto the nearby populace in Orvud District.

An evacuation was initiated, but this was halted as this had brought up the opportunity to stop the hulking behemoth in its tracks by mounting up the Orvud District Wall with as cannons the Garrison can conjure up, theorizing that the combined firepower would be enough to stop the rampaging Titan in its tracks, but should the Wall-mounted weapons fail to stop it then the mission would have to be carried upon by Squad Levi to defeat it.

As the Crawling Titan approached Orvud District, the Garrison and the Survey Corps braced themselves for the inevitable battle and as soon as the first shots were fired, everything became a sped-up blur; the first barrage struck home upon the behemoth abomination, nearly every shell hitting home. But that was merely nothing yet the bombardment continued as long as the Crawling Titan continued to move, and while the Garrison blasted away Squad Levi and the Survey Corps were brewing up their own secondary plan should the primary idea appear to be fruitless; collecting as much gunpowder-filled barrels, rope and netting they could get their hands on they had created scratch-built explosive devices, and as the Crawling Titan reared up to reveal its entire bottom half completely non-existent Squad Levi made their move.

Launching the first explosives into its hands, they had managed to create an opening for Eren, in his Titan form to throw a much larger pallet of explosives into whatever maw the aberration had, and with the intense heat the Crawling Titan was producing, it was more than enough to detonate the device and send many pieces of Titan flesh flying.

To prevent the monster from regenerating again, the Survey Corps went and sliced up any chunks of flesh large enough to house a human nervous system. Historia, having openly stated to deal with her faults and fulfill her destiny to become Queen, finds the mass of flesh and successfully slays the one that used to be her father, but when images flooded her mind she momentarily lost her senses and crash-landed on a wagon, only to regain consciousness as a crowd of people wondered who she was.

That answer was simple, for she was Historia Reiss: the _true_ ruler of humanity.

Now forwarding three years later, Squad Levi had long since recovered from their physical and psychological trauma, and the Reiss Chapel was ordered to be destroyed under orders from the then-crowned Queen Historia. And to add to her new sovereignty, a reformed Imperial Government had been introduced so a new age of peace and prosperity for all of humanity. Plus the Survey Corps had the added security of having new laws brought in by Historia herself stating that any governmental attempts to discontinue the Scout Regiment as a whole will be met through suspending, investigating or even outright arrest should there be a plot to put the Scouts in hot water like last time.

Eren had been promoted to Second Corporal by Commander Erwin himself a year after that life-changing battle, now the third-in-command of the Special Ops Squad after Levi and Commander Hanji; a position that he didn't have many an objection to aside from the harmless whining of his friends. And now he wasn't only a Titan Shifter that was on humanity's side, but a Shifter whose form was probably the most fearsome incarnation anybody has ever seen, not only that but he was currently in the possession of the mysterious power that brought him into that confrontation; the Coordinate, or according to Hanji the Original Titan.

Putting all of that in short, he was a super Titan-Shifter; a living superweapon of mankind, and he swore he could hear a slight childish giggle in the back of his mind whenever he thought of that title.

But with the Reiss Powers still within him, there was some difficulty in what to do next; with Historia being the very last of the entire Reiss bloodline and a solid friend for the past six years, it became clear that the Reiss Powers would probably stay within Eren's very being for the rest of his life, probably taking the powers to his grave to further safeguard humanity's safety if it came down to it.

But the nagging afterthought of himself thinking that he was some special 'humanity's last hope' really got into his nerves; he even punched himself in the face for that.

But now something else came up; he hadn't seen the other three Titan Shifters ever since they were swarmed by the horde which Commander Erwin had lured, and for them to be absent made him feel extremely uneasy, as they could pop up at any time as they had done several years previous with Wall Rose, and before that with Wall Maria.

The commander a deep breath to cool the flame that he could feel brewing inside him, his eyes narrowing in thought, "(_If any of you have somehow survived the Titan onslaught..._)"

"Hey Eren!" An unmistakable voice rang out from behind, making Eren snap out of his trance and look over his left shoulder.

Wearing the same uniform and equipment as he is, the only major difference he could tell from a distance was the chin-length blonde hair, bright blue eyes and slightly more rounder face.

"Huh, didn't expect you to be up here Armin..." He said in slight surprise, "I thought you were helping out around home base after having two of our wagons go missing."

Armin Arlert; Used to be slightly hesitant at times yet possessing an invaluable level of intelligence that even the best minds would grow envious of, he has been Eren's best friend since before the fall of Wall Maria and the destruction of Shiganshina. He had willingly followed his headstrong companion into becoming a member of the Scout Regiment so he could prove himself that he can be a survivor like Eren and Mikasa, and has surprised himself by besting his levels of bravery and courage to the point where on separate occasions he selflessly offered to sacrifice himself to save his friends, the same people who he sees as his only remaining family after losing his parents and grandparents to the Titans. Although he wasn't the strongest nor the most fearless of the entire Corps, his intellect and loyalty to those around him is undeniable.

But recently, the Shifter had noticed something about his blonde-haired childhood friend: Ever since the Battle of Orvud District not only had he seen Armin's confidence grow beyond what he previously thought but he also saw his overall appearance alter slightly; slightly thicker and longer hair, sharper eyes, sudden increases in physical capabilities, hell he was even matching Eren in terms of skill with a blade, 3DM-Gear, determination, and not least when it came to courage and, in his case, hard-headedness.

The only thing that put the two apart were obviously hair length and colour, eyes, intelligence, and facial appearances. Putting those aside, both were well matched in every category.

Metaphorically, that even scared Eren on just how much both he and Armin had matured over the past three years, not to mention that the weakest of all the male members of Squad Levi wasn't quite so weak anymore, that was years ago; nowadays, he was more than strong enough to match himself in an arm-wrestling match, and Eren was just starting to surpass Mikasa's physical strength yet she possessed a fair amount of brawn herself!

Eren's best friend huffed silently, "Well, something's been bugging me a lot lately so I thought about giving myself a chance to clear my head, so of all places I decided to find you up here."

"Well I'm not complaining but, why me? There's Mikasa, Sasha, hell even Connie and Jean you could talk to." Eren replied, "I'm just here to remind myself of a couple of things."

"Like what?" Armin asked.

The Shifter looked at Armin, "First, I've got some kind of superpower that belongs to the _Reiss bloodline._ Second, my entire life ever since the struggle to reclaim Trost. And thirdly... I'm probably the _only_ Titan Shifter who is on Humanity's side in this bloody war, and the rest? Well, that's mostly self-explanatory..."

Armin looked to his friend, "Well, first thing's first, we've been together since our childhood years, and I would no doubt put my life in your hands if things came down to it."

"And I wouldn't hesitate to put mine in your hands either, Armin." The Corporal replied.

"Wait, really? You sure about that?"

"Hey, at least it's a better answer than to have someone make a comment about you _clinging_ to me like I'm some kind of kids' _blanket."_ Eren grinned.

His friend gave a reassuring smile in response, "Yeah, that's probably true... but there's something that's been nagging me for a long time, and it's nothing regarding your abilities nor what we all went through, like Captain Levi and the Survey Corps being framed for the murder of Pastor Nick..."

Eren snorted in irritance, "Don't remind me, I remember that as if it happened yesterday."

"But it's nothing to do with any of that now. This thing is something that's sort of... personal, per-say..." Armin said in an uncomfortable manner.

This got Eren's attention as he raised an eyebrow toward his lifelong friend's direction, _"Personal?"_

"Yeah..." Armin nodded, "Well, technically it's just this feeling I've got for a long while now..." He murmured as he sat himself on the edge of the Wall beside his hot-headed childhood friend, "It's not easy to describe it really, but ever since you guys noticed the changes I've made over the past three years, I think it's safe to say that I'm no longer the so-called 'runt of the litter'..."

Eren gave the tactician a sidewards glance, "Yeah, I think we figured that one out a while ago... although..."

Armin mirrored his sidewards glance as he started to arouse his curiosity, _"Although...?"_

"I'm surprised that you've haven't actually showcased yourself yet...! Ya'know; given the number of times we've been through the changing rooms!"

"Uh huh..." Armin said bemusedly with a lowered eyebrow, "That bit of self-confidence I haven't really built up enough of, _yet..."_

Eren just shook his head as a grin grew on his face, "Maybe so, but when that time comes I bet you'll make the girls go crazy; heck I remember the time Mikasa walked in on me when I was getting dressed..."

"And from what I recall, the sight alone gave her a nosebleed, right?"

_"Ooh_ yes...!"

"Not surprising..."

"Hey, I can't help but have _that_ kind of charm; one day when you find the one girl and you'll know what I mean by the concept of '_eye candy_'..." Eren grinned with an oily voice when he said those last two words.

Armin shifted awkwardly on his spot as he looked out to the lands ahead in thought, "Huh, that makes me wonder how Commander Hanji thinks about Captain Levi after one of his showers... She's practically trying to get his affection nowadays! I mean sending him love letters, the occasional flirt..."

"...Organizing dates with him, and last but not least; planting rose petals all over his bed with her in nothing but _skimpy lingerie_?!"

"And to think I thought I knew just how many screws she had loose... _Oui..." _He muttered as he lightly pinched his forehead as he recalled a memory of Levi, the strongest soldier in all of humanity, apparently trying to flee from an underwear-clad Hanji when they both raced through the main hall!

And getting away from the crazed Titan-fanatic in his own bemused and emotionless way, as if he was getting bored from all of her romantic advances.

Not only that, but the hall was mostly filled with many of their comrades! And the looks on everybody's faces when they saw the fiasco play itself out... Yeesh, chances are there was a good possibility none of Squad Levi would ever see Commander Hanji the same way again!

Eren huffed at the insane memory, now his tone becoming more serious when he turned to Armin, "And speaking of the Captain, any idea where he is? I've been meaning to receive our next standing orders from him ever since a week after our last Exterior Scouting Mission, and I haven't seen him since."

"No clue..." The tactician shrugged, "Last I heard, he and Commander Hanji were summoned to the Capital... Jean and Connie went with them as escorts."

"Hmm... that explains a bit..." Eren murmured to himself as he leaned back, resting much of his weight onto his hands, "Although what's the reason behind that anyway?"

"Again; not a clue in the slightest... yet I did hear about some random mining company somewhere near Wall Sina, but that's all I could get at that moment..."

His brow furrowed slightly as he went into thought, eyes darting slightly from left to right and so on as his brain began to mentally scan for anything he may have heard about this in the past few days. From what he could tell, this was honestly the first time he had heard about a mining company attracting the attention of the Scout Regiment, maybe those mole-wannabes had uncovered an underground cavern similar to the Reiss Chapel, probably a preceding cavern that dated back to the first decade of the Walls being erected, the number of Titan transformations damaging the cave too much to continue with passing down the Reiss Powers.

Deciding to leave all of that in the past, Eren turns to his life-long friend with a new subject in mind, "Hey Armin,just a simple question to change the topic; who have you previously developed a crush on over the past several years?"

Armin's eyes instantly went wide the moment his friend's question reached his ears, completely taken by surprise as he brought his gaze onto him, "S-Say what?"

"Just something to take my mind away from that Reiss Chapel arc... nothing dangerous about a harmless question is there?"

"Hmm... N-Not really... although I did have a slight crush on Historia while she was posing as Krista Lenz back at the Academy though." Armin replied as he looked out toward the lands ahead of him, "Typical, isn't it?"

"Huh... another one of those 'falling for the kind-hearted goddess' guys, weren't ya?" Eren remarked half-heartedly, "Personally I always thought there was something she had been hiding from us, and all of that innocence and angelic looks swatted aside to reveal an empty shell that is our Queen..."

Armin couldn't help but let out an amused sigh as he shook his head, "Whatever floats your boat,. Man... so what about you? Surely you've had some kind of romantic interest yourself back then... besides Mikasa that is...!"

The brown-haired Shifter gave a smile and nodded, a thought running into his mind and a sly smirk forming on his face, "Right, okay then, if we're gonna be playing this game might as well make this more interesting... okay, this is more along the lines of... a certain girl..."

Armin looked toward Eren with a still-raised eyebrow and looking at him as if he had been told the worst joke on the planet, "A _girl?_ That's it? Come on...! There's more than enough girls in the Survey Corps then I could shake a stick at!"

Eren couldn't help but laugh aloud, holding his stomach as he turned to his lifelong companion, "Just testing to see if you were listening..."

"Yeah, yeah, just narrow it down to a more manageable level, will ya? I may be more smarter than you but the way you're starting out isn't really my idea of a fun game..." Armin said in a flat tone of voice.

Calming down after several deep breaths, Eren started over his little game again, although this time he made sure he didn't make it too blunt nor obvious knowing that his blonde-haired friend was a helluva lot more smarter than he is, "So yeah, back to the question; we trained alongside her back at the Academy..."

"Uh huh... _Soo..._ what's about this girl that got your heartstrings in a tangle?"

Eren paused for a few seconds, and knowing he was going into uncharted territory, he took a deep breath and spoke, "Okay, this is going back sometime when we went off on our first deployment beyond the Walls, and... well..."

The more his childhood companion explained, the more Armin became more interested as an amused smirk began to appear on his face, "Well, what did she look like? Cute?"

"Yet _mysterious_ at the same time..." He says in an unnerving tone.

Eren looked to the horizon as he leaned forward to rest his arms on his lap, while Armin scratched his chin as he eyes narrowed in thought, _"Soo..._ In short she's a girl we used to train alongside?"

"Oh yes..." Eren admitted, "Then when a number of events played themselves out, I started to doubt myself if she really _was_ the one for me..."

Armin slightly nodded in acknowledgement, "I think I understand..."

Eren paused, and unconsciously balled his hands into fists, "Although when she revealed who she really was sometime after that disastrous expedition, I _really_ hated myself for it..."

Armin's mental image of this mystery girl began to raise questions, then something ticked, making him snap out in surprise, "Eren... were you interested in _Annie?_"

The only thing the Shifter could do in his situation was give a slight shrug, "Meh... I admit, when we both trained together I even tried asking her out one time."

Armin's eyes widened in disbelief, "Whoa, _really?_ How'd _that_ turn out?"

"Eh, it could've taken off from there, if it wasn't for _Mikasa_ catching wind and ruining the whole thing..." He said with a slight hint of annoyance in his voice.

The tactician gave off a long whistle after a few seconds of silence, "Talk about a party-crasher..."

"Puh, yeah..." Eren huffed as he rested his head in one hand, "And now I think about it, had she not screwed it up I bet our lives would've taken a very different course."

"Hmm, yeah maybe so... and maybe you wouldn't have found out that you could transform into a 15 metre-tall _lunatic_ with dental issues..." Armin said as if to tease his lifelong friend.

"Hey that was my first time, okay?!"

"And now _where_ have I heard _that_ before?" Armin again teased, tapping his chin as he gave him a sly sidewards smirk.

"Hey hey hey! No more of those kinds of jokes, okay..." Eren replied in defence, "Besides I had no idea that Mikasa could get so rough in bed in the first place...!"

Armin instantly turned away as he tried to hold back the urge to laugh, the sounds of sniggering escaped his lips as his shoulders trembled. Then after a second or two a sudden hand struck the back of his head with a light 'thwack'. It wasn't painful, but it was still enough to make him rub the spot where was hit, "...Ow..."

"Serves you right..."

Armin couldn't help but give a smile at his brown-haired friend as he shook his head out of this random silliness. But as he did so, a gust of wind blew across the top of the Great Wall, catching both their attentions as they looked out to the former territories of Wall Maria, the direction where the freezing cold winds were coming from and where once plentiful farmlands were soon replaced by wild vast grasslands and forests.

The Titan-Shifter felt a chill go up his spine, "It's getting chilly up here, seems like the cold time's starting to come in quite faster than anticipated."

"Yeah, not like I have a problem with that." Armin added as they both began to stand up, "After all, the decreasing daylight hours are going to effect some of the Titans out there, making it easier for us to deal with them without that essential sunlight they need."

Eren agreed with a slight grunt, "Some of them yes, but the bigger ones we'll need to remain vigilant about..." He says before turning back to Armin, "C'mon, let's go see what the rest of the squad are up to."

Armin nodded in agreement, "Right, I'm starting to get a bit cold myself anyways..."

With that said, both Scouts headed straight for the edge of the Wall that was facing the heavily fortified city of Trost, and turning around to fire their hooks into the solid stone and once in place, both leapt off the edge and abseiled down to solid ground.

_The Forest of__ Gi__ant__ Trees…_

If the Great Walls surrounding the last stronghold of human civilization were tall, then the trees themselves stood equally as tall, if not much taller. This was home to many species of animals and insects, some of which were preparing to make their annual migrations to warmer climates further south while the rest braced themselves to tough out the cold dark winter that lay ahead.

Below on the forest floor, a small herd of deer graze amongst the ferns and undergrowth for whatever good grass or leaves was available, soon enough they would be forced to venture out into the open to find just enough fresh grazing grounds just to survive another day, but each passing winter was getting worser and longer. Some of which might not survive to see next spring's bloom.

Then the sound of gas being mechanically discharged pierces the quaint silence, and the deer scatter in all directions.

But whatever made the sound had no interest in pursuing after the skittish cloven-hoofed animals, and many more sounds similar to the one before began to make quite a racket as a human-shaped figure flashed overhead, followed by another, more odd sound belonging to whatever was accompanying the shadow; a pair of horse-drawn wagons, the second wagon's horse being tethered to the back of the forward wagon like chain couplings on a railway goods train.

The driver of the first wagon adorned a dark green cloak, identical to the ones the Scout Regiment use for their soldiers but bore no insignia. The only signs the cloak bore were of heavy ground-in dirt stains and overall wear and tear along the rim and hood.

Before long, the two-wagon convoy emerged through a thick layer of undergrowth into a wide clearing, and up ahead was the figure's escort, adorning a similar unmarked and equally tattered cloak, standing in front of an isolated tree with a large cavernous hole in the trunk, big enough to possibly fit both people in.

Just like the driver, the mystery figure was equipped with the same type of ODM-Gear that Eren, Armin and all three military branches possess, but after nearly several hours of almost non-stop travel, he was nearly out of the necessary gas he needed for aerial manoeuvres.

He looked at the trigger in his right hand, a disgruntled sigh escaping his lips, "Jeez... if we hadn't stole those large gas canisters we'd be more than just dead meat by now..."

"Probably a good thing that we did..." His companion driving the wagons said, "Too bad we had to slit a few throats just to get enough of the stuff..."

"Not to mention the odd detaching of heads and the like..." He added in a similar tone. "And yet we nearly had ourselves the entire Scout Regiment on our tails like a pack of wolves!"

"Reiner, just knock it off...!" The tall figure barked out, "Not that I want to have a review of today's little adventure...!"

The man standing before the wagon removed his hood, revealing a strong yet furrowed face whose eyebrows seem to be in a constant scowl, his hair was blonde and very short almost mistaken a buzz-cut, and his eyes were either coloured gold or light orange. Reiner Braun was this brute's name.

His companion, now unhooded, had a few similarities to Reiner but instead of short blonde hair this one had slightly longer dark brown hair, green eyes, slightly bigger nose, and in terms of physical statistics he was more slimmer than his bulkier counterpart, and was more mild-mannered than Reiner. This was Bertolt Hoover, Reiner's best friend much like Eren and Armin were friends since childhood.

However, for their explanation for not being with any other human conflict was for a good reason as both people were the same as Eren; Titan-Shifters, humans who can transform into Titans at will and their respective Titans were, respectively, the Colossal and the Armoured Titans.

Before Reiner could respond in kind, the sound of another person with 3DM-Gear rang out overhead, and landing to Reiner's left-hand side was their third acquaintance, this time a young woman of similar age. She was almost as tall as her two male counterparts but she was far more slender in build, her skin was fair-tanned, eyes were either gold or orange, dark coloured hair covering part of her face, and a small number of freckles were dotted on both cheeks.

"You're late, Ymir..." Reiner said venomously.

"Oh, '_a thousand apologies, oh patient one_'..." She remarked with a similar tone of sarcasm.

Reiner's eyes further scowled at the female Shifter, "You remember what we both told you not to do? Or has that flown out of your brain the moment you thought of Krista like always...?"

"Now don't you start _that_ one up again, Chunky!" Ymir warned.

"The both of you knock it off already! It's dangerous enough out here as it is without you two inviting anything hungry nearby to a snack bar!"

As Reiner snorted in response, Ymir decided it was best to keep her mouth shut. True, this place may be in an open part of the forest but there could always be a stray Titan lurking about in the nearby undergrowth, and to have one attack the small band of exiles while they were setting up camp would be a disaster and a half.

With that said, Reiner decided to comment as he folded his arms to his chest, "Well, with our home village now being nothing more than a mere heap of rubble thanks to those Titans, what do we do now?"

"For starters we've got plenty of fuel, that'll help us when it comes to finding food, wouldn't it?" Ymir asks.

Reiner turned to the only girl of the group, "I wouldn't recommend it. Sure it's gonna be a huge advantage for us but that won't last forever, soon we'll have to do things the old-fashioned way."

"He has a point..." Bertolt says, "This won't last us forever, so we'll just have to use the gas sparingly and in emergencies only."

Reiner nodded, "Right."

"But what about keeping an eye out for any Titans? Or worse some elements of the Scout Regiment?" Ymir asks in a demeaning manner.

"Then we'll do what we've been doing ever since; run for our lives."

Her eyes nearly widened in response, "Say what?"

"Face it, we're barely equipped for any defence should any Scouts go after us, hell even going full Titan aren't gonna hinder their efforts to have us as stinking corpses in this godforsaken forest!" Reiner exclaimed.

"It's true; if we are found by the Scouts, the only thing we can do is run." Bertolt added.

Ymir huffed in irritation as she placed both hands on her hips, "I guess that's the only thing we're good at nowadays, huh?"

"Probably..." Reiner says.

"Enough of this now." Bertolt called out, catching his two other companions' attentions and turns to Ymir, "Now, Ymir; did you spot anything on your long-range patrol?" Bertolt asks.

This got Ymir's attention, "Now come to think of it, I did find something that was totally out of the ordinary along my patrol."

"And what's that? Titans having a gangbang?" Reiner sneered to his own personal amusement, "Hell if we find anything of that level I oughta shoot myself in the foot!"

Ymir instantly cringed at Reiner, "Urgh! God, that's disgusting Reiner!"

"Such a pathetic joke if you ask me..." Bertolt said, his expression showing his lack of amusement, "And last I remember, Titans don't have reproductive organs so there's no way they can breed."

Reiner just snorted as he folded his arms across his chest, "Yeah whatever..."

"Now back to what I was saying..." Ymir started again, "At first I thought it was a Titan trail, but something about this one was off, as if _something else_ made it..." She pondered in thought.

Both male Shifters raised an eyebrow, "Wait, '_something else_'...?" Reiner said with a suspicious voice.

Ymir nodded to confirm, "And unlike a regular Titan trail, there was a lot of uprooted trees and a whole lotta branches stripped off of their leaves along the path. Whatever this thing is it's got to be unlike anything we've encountered before."

"You mean like a giant animal?" Reiner said.

"Yeah, or a _group_ of giant animals, probably something along those lines... come to think of it I have never seen tracks of that type before, Titan or beast..." She says with a suspicious voice, scratching her chin as she pondered her claims in thought.

The blonde-haired Shifter's eyebrows cocked slightly as he looked at Ymir, "Now let's back this up a moment; An animal that can grow to the _size_ of a Titan? _Riiight,_ no offence Miss-Freckles but the last time monsters other than Titans got to _that_ size were the dinosaurs, and they've been dead for _65 million years_! There's no way in hell that _any_ example could survive to this day and age."

"And I'm telling you something big that wasn't a Titan _made_ those tracks!" She hisses, "And before I left to rendezvous with you guys I think I saw some pieces of evidence that you might consider otherwise, I definitely know that there were some big footprints heading in a North to North-Western direction."

"If what you're saying is true, then we might as well go and investigate to be on the safe side." Bertolt said aloud, "Tie the horses and secure the wagons down; we're going by ODM-Gear."

Both Shifters nodded in acknowledgement, and as soon as Bertolt shifted his gear to the horizontal position and the horses were tied up to the nearby tree in the middle of the clearing, all three fired their grappling hooks into the branches high up above and with a tug on their wires, all three shot upwards like rockets into the overhanging treetops, leaving behind three separate gas vapours.

After a few minutes of traveling through the thick forest canopy, the three Titan Shifters reached their destination and, at first it appeared that Ymir had brought them to what resembled like a dried up riverbed save for a few strange marks in the mud and some small toppled trees.

Reiner looked as if he had heard the most pathetic joke in the world, "This is it? A dried up river?!"

"This better be some kind of joke Ymir, because I'm not laughing at your lack of humour..." Bertolt commented.

Ymir's eyebrows scrunched in response, "This may look like a riverbed but I've also noticed what was _in_ there that made me suspicious about this."

"Eh? English please..."

"_Urgh_! Just let me show you and you'll know what I'm on about!"

With that said, Ymir jumps off the large branch, firing a zip-wire into another tree to slow her descent to the ground. While Reiner followed suit behind her, Bertolt remained up in the trees, and judging by their facial expressions they looked as if they were planning on beating the crap out of their female companion should she try another round of trying to make them laugh.

Reiner in particular looked fairly annoyed, "Hey Ymir, if this is part of another failed joke then I might as well have some fun making you _writhe_ in pain."

Ymir gave a cold hard stare at him, "Which would _be...?"_

"Sticking a blade up your _skinny_ ass!"

"If you _even_ fucking _dare..."_

"The both of you shut up! I'm getting more of a headache listening to you than Eren's struggling back during our escape attempt!" Bertolt snapped from above.

"Hey, the last thing I want is a _reminder_ of that punk-ass hothead...!" Reiner added in a cold voice, "I've still got a bone to pick with him ever since we _lost_ him all those years ago!"

Two pairs of heavily worn-out military-grade boots landed on the ground right in the middle of this so-called riverbed, but the texture of the soil felt like what Ymir had mentioned a while ago; out of the ordinary. Bertolt knew this wasn't natural either, and soil was meant to be slightly hard at this time of year, but this was more of a loamy kind, as if it had been either cultivated or more mysteriously dug up and dumped on the spot.

But nobody has been here aside for the three Titan Shifters.

Ymir turns around so that her back was to her blonde butch companion, "And what we have before us here, _Mr-Beast-Of-Burden_, is the biggest reason why I have brought you here!"

"'_Beast-Of-Burden'_?! _You_ are treading a _very_ fine line here..." Reiner coldly warned as he

Bertolt and Reiner shift their gaze over to where Ymir was looking towards, and before them lay a deep four-pronged depression in the ground roughly five metres ahead.

"An oddly-shaped depression in the ground? You're really starting to piss me off, girl!" Reiner snarled.

"Oh? You wanted the bigger picture? Why not see for yourself back up in the trees and you'll get a better view of what I'm talking about!"

"Except you brought me down to ground level, ya dimwit!"

"Then maybe that's because you _blindly_ follow either of us wherever we go!"

Reiner's eyes narrowed, "You asking for a can o' whup-ass? 'Cause I'm happy to oblige that kind of _wish,_ you know..."

As his companions exchanged death threats to one another, Bertolt's eyebrows shifted as he tried to figure out what this was supposed to be. For starters it could just be a regular depression in the ground, in that case he'll be owing Ymir more than just a mere smack round the back of the head when they get back to the campsite. But on the other hand, she might be onto something and may have found evidence of something new turning up here, another Titan? Who knows, they might be on the verge of potential discovery should the latter materialize before them.

Lightly scratching his chin in thought, Bertolt narrowed his eyes as he studied the odd mark in the ground; four prongs, three of which pointing toward his two comrades, who were now in the midst of a heated argument, and the fourth was pointing to his direction despite him being high up.

As far as marks in the ground go this was an odd phenomena, now he had a mental image of this shape, and the only thing it could come close to was a fat four-digit footprint.

Then his eyes widened in realization; this _was_ a footprint! And this has got to be something entirely new to human science, most likely a new breed of Titan that hasn't been discovered yet! The thought is becoming more likely as he thought more about it. But as he looks into the direction the footprints were heading in, he sees an area where the ground in the middle of the path was near-black as if there was a massive bonfire, but this mark somehow resembled a humanoid shape.

"(_Wait a minute... is that..._)" His eyes shot wide open as to what he saw, "(_Is... is that... yes, that_ is_ Titan Ash!_)"

Without a second thought, Bertolt takes off from his perch, leaving both Reiner and Ymir oblivious to his sudden departure.

The leader of the trio lands on another large branch overhanging this scolded area of ground, and scans the entire pathway for a full confirmation on at least some of his suspicions. He gasps silently at what he saw; this _was_ indeed a four-digit footprint, but what caught him off-guard was that this wasn't the only one on the riverbed. There were a lot more of them, all pointing in the same direction, although the odd few footprints were ironically pointing in the other direction, indicating this path was undoubtedly in use.

This was key evidence that something big had now taken up residence within the Forest of Giant Trees, and its tracks was at least a half-mile away from the campsite should they travel via 3DM-Gear.

"Hey, Ymir! I think you may be onto something here!" Bertolt calls out.

"...Yeah and guess what- wait, _what?"_

"Just get up here!" He calls out again, this time with a more disgruntled tone of voice.

A short moment later, Ymir jumps up alongside her leader and turns to the riverbed, a slight look of uncertainty on her face as she looks over the area.

"Just for the record, I think it's not just Titans and the Scout Regiment we have to worry about right now..."

Ymir looks to him confused, "What do you mean by that?"

"Just look over there," He points to the path leading deeper into the forest, "And _that_ down there, and you'll get what I mean..." He then points toward the partially dissipated pile of darkened ground directly below.

As soon as she saw it, her eyes nearly popped out of her skull, "Now _that_ I didn't see earlier on..."

In Bertolt's opinion, the trio may be on the verge of discovering something, it was still unclear but for a newly developed pathway to be created by something that was too big to be a regular Titan and nearly large enough for Bertolt's own Titan form to make? As Bertolt continued to observe the surroundings, he notices something else; varied overhanging branches were either fractured and hanging limply, completely stripped clean of any greenery or had fallen into the middle of the trail, some of which having fallen from the trees just a few short days ago, and the size and shape of the footprints concluded this thing was likely to be a very large quadruped creature.

But the presence of a pile of Titan Ash gave a chilling thought; considering how big the Titan Ash was, this new animal could probably be of the meat-eating kind, or there had just been a simple meeting between two large terrestrial species that suddenly went sour, or the most likely scenario was that the remains had been there for a while and the new creatures had arrived later on. But there was a question to the last possibility; If the Titan had died here, then how did it meet it's fate? Surely a Titan can survive for many decades even without needing to feed so natural causes wouldn't be an issue. The next thing was it had been killed by Scouts, which was the most likely scenario by any standard.

Then Ymir's gaze drifted further on up the path, and a small gasp catches Bertolt's attention to Ymir, and looking to where her gaze was pointed the trail up ahead was joined up to a wider trail where, even more footprints and what looked to be another pile of Titan Ash were present.

Both Shifters looked at each other uneasily, now this was the last thing they needed; an animal that could have developed a taste for Titan blood, and one that could be more than big enough to take one down with little to no effort? Ymir swallowed hard as small droplets of sweat beaded down both Shifters' foreheads while they stared at the severity of the damage the culprit had inflicted, it was only a matter of time before long-range patrols of the Survey Corps would discover this, and in turn find the Shifters' themselves.

"Hey! What's going on up there?! You see something interesting?!" Reiner yelled from below.

"Get your ass here and you'll find out!" Ymir shouted.

At least ten seconds go by before the blonde Shifter reached up to the same branch his comrades were perched upon, and as soon as he lays eyes upon what the commotion was about a gasp of disbelief escapes his mouth as his eyes widen in shock. None of them knew it, but both Ymir's hands were trembling at the very thought of what the killer of these unfortunate Titans' might have looked like.

Then it hit them; something _was_ challenging the Titans in sheer size alone, and as they stood in a mix of awe and fear Titans were no longer the only giant organisms residing in this forest. And as if the approaching winter months were going to be hard, then trying to survive the oncoming winter with a possible _Titan-killing monster_ on the loose was just pushing things beyond what they were able to cope with.

Then the leaves and smaller branches around the three quivered suddenly, alerting the trio to what felt like short sudden vibrations, exactly like massive footsteps but far more distant. As they all mentally registered the small miniature quakes that vibrated through the trees, an even more bone-chilling sound reached their ears; a very low, eerie and distant grumble from far within the deep depths of the forest, almost sounding like deep animalistic growls but not quite like it as this was on a level that not even the three Shifters could understand.

And this sent a shiver of fear down their backs as well as an unconventional message:

Nature had joined the war against the Titans.

**_To Be Continued..._**

_**Author's Side-Note:**_

_**If you have**** noticed my last note on the intro page, then I have made a large number of alterations to replace a previous monster design with another, so if you should find anything that doesn't match up, please inform me!****  
**_

_**Until next time!**_


	3. Chapter 2: Surprising Discoveries

_**Attack On Titan: Go Big Or Go Extinct**_

_Written by: The-Confused-Blue-Dragon_

_Chapter 2: Surprising Discoveries..._

The marketplace of Trost was booming; people of all ages, shapes and sizes congregated here to sell or buy their daily goods, or just to socialize with their neighbours and friends. The market stalls were stocked to the rim with all kinds of clothing, jewellery, fresh fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices and fresh meats brought in from within the southern farmlands of Wall Rose, bringing a lifeline into the city after what had happened three years ago.

That year was when the fortified city had nearly suffered the same fate as Eren's old home of Shiganshina when the Colossal Titan breached its gates, allowing hordes of Titans to enter and endanger the populace. But thankfully for the coordinated efforts of the Garrison and the 104th Trainees Squadron, no civilian casualties were lost.

But the same couldn't be said for the soldiers whose lives were lost in the struggle for Trost, in total, more than 500 brave souls were either lost to the Titan's hunger or to fallen debris the great creatures inflicted in their rampage across the fortified town.

The Vanguard forces plus the Garrison manning the cannons at the destroyed gates were all but wiped out, leaving the centre force in tatters and struggling for survival as the battlefield became a free-for-all melee. The aftermath of that distraught engagement resulted in the Titan hordes laying siege to Trost Headquarters, where many personnel were trapped within and the soldiers fighting off the abominations were stuck outside, dangerously low on fuel and trapped upon the rooftops.

But as the fate of Trost looked bleak, a rogue Titan went on a rampage and wiped out its brethren that had surrounded the fortress, buying time for troops of the 104th Cadet Corps and the men and women on the Arm &amp; Supply Group to refuel, rearm and escape Trost while the window was still open.

But as they stocked up and fled to Wall Rose, the Rogue Titan was losing its fight and strength as it was getting eaten alive, but in the end the creature reigned victorious. Unfortunately for the soldiers their most unlikeliest of allies collapsed from exhaustion much to the dismay of the soldiers who planned to take it into their custody for scientific study.

But emerging from the nape of the beast, was none other than Cadet Eren Yeager, who was previously listed down as killed in action, with his left arm and leg fully regenerated as if nothing had happened.

After some heated tension between Eren's species-related identity and Captain Woerman's nervous preposition, he and his two friends were spared by Commander Dot Pixis, the unconventional Commander of the Garrison Regiment, and from there he saw Eren's Titan abilities as the Holy Grail to retaking Trost from the Titans.

After a while of preparations and planning out the counteroffensive, the operation to retake the city commenced and with a large force drawing a majority of Titans within Trost to one corner, Eren and his escorts consisting of his sister and elites from the Garrison Regiment were clear to reach the boulder necessary to plug up the beached hole.

But as soon as he changed back into his Titan form, he instantly went berserk and knocked himself out after trying to kill his sister, whom he had been totally oblivious to. It was the efforts of Armin Arlert who had brought him back by reminding him of what they wanted to do when they were kids, and under a thick cloud of steam, the mighty boulder was hoisted onto the Titan Shifter's back and having any loose Titans drawn away from him by his escorts, the hole in the wall was successfully plugged up and Trost was therefore saved from certain destruction.

Nowadays, there was not a single piece of evidence that Trost had been a battleground aside from a large plaque next to the gates leading into the interior of Wall Rose, bearing the names of all whose lives were lost on that day, and an enormous boulder from when the Rogue Titan hoisted the mighty rock from one end of Trost to the destroyed gate.

But after three long years of rebuilding, the great boulder was soon flanked either side by two massive gates, both far stronger than their single predecessor and theorized by their builders and designers to be more than strong enough to repel another siege should the Colossal Titan decide to make another reappearance, although this was merely guess-work as there was little evidence the new gates would be capable of repelling such enormous forces.

While these modifications soon devolved into part of the Wall, Eren and Armin walked amongst the townsfolk, many giving the two the friendly greeting and respective nod and with the pair giving similar responses back.

A group of kids zip by the experienced soldiers as they played together, making both chuckle in response.

Armin gave a soft smile as the children raced off into the masses, "Hey Eren, do you remember the time when we were their age?"

"Oh yeah; those years were certainly the good ones; not a care in the world and the only thing you were concerned about was when dinner's gonna be ready."

Armin chuckled in reply, "Yeah... Man I miss those days..."

"Yeah…" Eren said, "Still, now we're in the Scouts, we've seen a bit of the world beyond the Walls, _but..."_

"But?" Armin said, looking slightly confused.

Eren grinned, "Unfortunately for my tastes, _that's_ not enough!"

The tactician could only shake his head, "Ah Eren, you and your free-spirited sense of adventure..."

"Hey, nothing I can help with that, we're meant to be born free you know." The Squad Commander says, "Besides you're the one who lit the fire in the first place."

Armin chuckled to himself, "Heheh... Yeah, maybe I did!"

With that said, both childhood friends continued on their stroll through the marketplace. But neither could notice that their presence in their full uniform and gear were creating quite a commotion amongst some of the population, in this case catching the eyes of many a young maiden passing in the opposite direction, snatching a quick peek of romantic interest at the two.

Something to Eren's right catches his attention, and there around a clothing stall were three or four young women of similar age, in his case he had to admit they were quite the attractive bunch, but on a side note there was someone else who he wanted to give his affection to.

One of the maidens notices the two Scouts and instantly tells her other friends who all shift their gaze toward the Scouts' direction. Eren lightly elbows Armin to get his attention, and when the blonde-haired Scout saw the girls looking at him and his friend, they both give the young ladies a friendly nod. The girls all giggle and blush amongst themselves, probably startled, surprised or just mainly excited that they had caught the attention of two Survey Corps soldiers.

"See, what did I tell you? _Plenty_ of beautiful ladies to choose from..." Eren says with a grin.

Armin looks back at the girls, whom one of which, an orange-haired maiden with freckles and wearing a medium-blue dress, locks gazes with him. Slightly caught off-guard, he instantly gives a friendly smile and nods to her, whereas the redhead's eyes widened in response and eagerly tells her companions. They all instantly take another look at him and giggle with delight that such an attractive young soldier has noticed them.

"Hmm..." Armin hummed in thought, "Although, there's a problem every guy has when it comes to finding a girl out of a group."

"And what's that?" Eren asks.

Armin looks toward him, "Choosing which one you want to pick as your future bride, of course!"

Eren chuckled, "Oh boy... Armin, has anyone told you you're quite the comedian when you get the opportunity?"

"Nope, but then again I'm the brains of the squad, remember?" Armin grins, "Can't pull off a good joke from time to time now, can't I?"

"Heh! You sly weasel, you!"

As both Scouts rounded a corner and passed a tavern, Eren catches sight of a particular stall far to his left, and on it were an enormous variety of gems, precious metals and allsorts involving jewellery. This gave the Titan-Shifter a reminder to get a gift for a certain someone who, all those years ago, he should've realized just how important she was to him, so he was going to repay her with a little gift.

"Hey Armin, be right back, gonna get something from over there." Eren says.

"Err, yeah, see you in a bit." He replies, and watches him head on over to the jewellery stand.

Armin's left eyebrow lowered slightly, "(_What on the world are you going over there for?_)" He thought, "(_Getting a piece of jewellery isn't usually your thing so why are you so interested all of a sudden?_)"

Armin scratched the side of his head, subconsciously showing his confusion as Eren headed off.

The squad's lead tactician huffed to himself, "(_Oh well, might as well see what these market stalls have to offer..._)"

Looking around, he saw all sorts of items, foodstuffs, clothing and even small livestock such as chickens, ducks and even geese on sale all around him, and as well as that everybody was smiling, happy and appearing as if they had nothing to fear about, not even the Titans lurking on the other side of the wall. Not a single face that was anything other than happy was present here, and it gave off an aurora of safety and prosperity, not that he had a problem with any of it of course.

Then a whiff of something being cooked catches his nose, making him turn around to see where that mouth-watering smell was originating from, and a fair distance away on one side of the street was a food shop which had just opened recently, and on its stalls was a wide assortment of fresh food of all types. Many on display was freshly baked bread of varied shapes and sizes, and fruits and meats such as chicken, beef, goose, pheasant, deer and all sorts.

With all that food on stock, there was no chance that his stomach wouldn't rumble just at the mere sight, "(_Heh heh, since I haven't had the chance to have my breakfast this morning, I guess it wouldn't hurt to try this place out..._)" He thought.

As he headed on over to the shop, the many smells of freshly bread, fruit and other foodstuffs made his mouth water up, which he swallows down to hopefully avoid any embarrassing scenarios that a soldier of the Survey Corps should never do.

As well as his nose, his gaze couldn't escape such edible treasure that lay before him, "(_Wow, I gotta admit these guys know how to get a hungry guys' attention..._)"

To his left, several individual loaves of bread fresh and still warm from the ovens, in front on him lay ripe fruits and fresh vegetables like lettuce, carrots and cabbage, and onwards to his right were several cuts of ham, beef, mutton, pork and ready-to-cook chicken, duck and even a massive goose as big as his torso!

Armin couldn't help but give a long whistle, "Talk about being spoiled for choice..."

"Like what ya see then, eh me lad?" Called an elderly and gruff yet cheery voice from the room at the back of the store.

Armin responded with a friendly smile, "Yeah, all of this looks and smells so delicious! I'm surprised you haven't had any customers around yet."

"Ah, they be comin' after a while lad. After all this 'ere shop just opened last week it did!" The voice said again.

"Last week? Huh, I wondered what all that commotion was about back at base."

"Base? You in the military, lad?"

"Yes I am; been serving for at least three years now." Armin replies.

The shopkeeper poked his head from round the corner, and Armin saw an almost bald old man, fairly bulky after working for many years, grey hair rimming the back of his head and a thick grey mustache covering his mouth and wearing a large baking apron to protect his regular clothes.

The old man's eyes bulged out of their sockets as he got a good look at the insignia on Armin's cloak and uniform, "By Jove! Yer one o' them Scouts! Never thought I'd have one o' yer as me first customer of the day!"

Armin blinked in realization, "Wait, first customer of the day, sir?"

"Aye! An' is nearly midday too." The shopkeeper added as he hauled a large flat spade carrying several loaves of bread to one of the bread stalls, steam still coming from the pores in the bread.

Armin's nose received an overload of freshly baked bread, nearly making his eyes water, "Phwoah! That's some fresh food you've got there, sir!"

"Sellin' food this fresh for t'e people is what me passions' been for t'e last few decades, laddie; I don' intend ta go outta business anytime soon!" He says with a chuckle, laying down the spade on the bread stall and individually placing each loaf of bread with a thick cloth-covered hand, mainly for protection against getting himself burned.

After positioning the last loaf where it can cool down, the shopkeeper now turns to the blonde-haired Scout, clapping both hands together and rubbing with anticipation, "Now me lad; what does yer appetite fancy on this 'ere day? Some slices o' ham? Sausages? A thing o' beef perhaps?"

Armin waved a hand, "No thanks, me and my colleague are due back to base... although I'll happily go for a couple slices of ham and a small loaf of bread on the go, you know, no time for breakfast and all that."

The shopkeeper grinned eagerly, "Then look no further me boy! 'Cuz I've got t'e ideal thing you be lookin' for." He says and reaching for below the main counter, the shopkeeper brings up a tray of small hand-sized pieces of bread, almost just as fresh than the larger loaves on the nearby stand, "Feel free to take the one ya like, lad, an extra bit o' fuel goes a long way for t'e job you do." The experienced baker said with an assuring wink.

"Thanks, sir!" Armin said with a smile, and picking up a golden-brown loaf he learns it was still warm and still had a slightly hard crust, whereas the inside was as soft as a pillow.

"So just ta let ya know, me gran'sons' into his second year o' military trainin', kept ramblin' on about wantin' ta join t'e Scouts ever since he were this high." He says and holds his left hand around a metre off the ground, "His folks ain't too 'appy 'bout this career choice ta begin with…"

"The same for my friend when his parents found out, not the best response though..." He said from thought, then chuckled slightly as another thought popped into his head, "Although when your grandson comes by, feel free to say that a Scout stopped by to grab a bite..." Armin says with a cheeky grin.

The shopkeeper hollered a laugh out heartily, wiping away a tear as he laughed out aloud, "That'll be an eye-openin' surprise for t'e lad when he visits!"

Still laughing a bit, the experienced baker wraps up two thick slices of ham and small bread and stuffs them in a small pouch. Armin happily takes the pouch and gives three silver coins in return as payment.

"Glad doin' business wit' ya me boy! Feel free ta come 'round whenever ya want'a light snack or two!"

Armin gives off a slight chuckle, "Will do sir. And maybe I'll bring a couple of friends around to try this place out!" He adds.

"All t'e more better, see ya soon laddie!" He says with a light wave of the hand.

The Scout returns a friendly wave, "See you later!"

Exiting the store, Armin takes a quick peek at his recent purchase; the small loaf of fresh bread and ham instantly warmed up his pouch, and due to the combination of both the sight and smell of his snack this causes his stomach to grumble slightly, demanding to be fed immediately.

Armin gave a slight grin to himself, "(_Heh heh, this is sort of like a taste of how Sasha felt after not being allowed food privileges for several days back in the Academy..._)" He thought.

Those starting days of Cadet Training were pretty much the most memorable moments that place had to give him. For starters upon first introductions under the pounding death glare and bellowing from Chief Instructor Keith Shadis, Sasha had been caught munching on a potato in broad daylight and, much to his surprise and annoyance that someone like her would openly defy rules.

But what had _really_ got him below the belt was that she had _offered_ the instructor half of that potato!

The poor girl was then forced to run laps around the camp until she was close to death, thankfully later the next day she looked like she hadn't ran such a marathon, but unfortunately due to eating that potato mid-inspection she had unwittingly obtained the nickname 'Potato-Girl', which she still loathed to this day no matter how much she claimed to have forgotten about it.

It was later found out that she had previously originated from a hunting village and had virtually no idea on how to behave in that sort of scenario, but when it came to sustaining themselves in times of peace she was the undisputed huntress and usually bested everybody else within the group when it came to that subject.

Rolling the top of the pouch to keep his recent purchase fresh, Armin tucks the small bag away into the inside chest pocket of his light brown uniform jacket, and that too kept one side of his chest warm, "(_Now then, back to finding out what Eren bought this time..._)"

Walking back to the same spot where he and Eren parted, he scans the marketplace for any sign of his squad-mate amongst the civilian populace, unfortunately for the blonde tactician the number of people foraging around made his current task all the more difficult for him.

Grunting to himself in irritation, he heads off to the jewellery stall in the hopes that Eren was still there through having trouble choosing what he wanted. Downside to that was the number of people now building up in this area, making it more difficult for him to locate Eren.

Then from behind, the sound of glass smashing against stone catches his attention and he instantly flips his gaze to the source. The cause; one of the town's regular drunk being thrown out of a nearby tavern, in which the giddy old man probably had one too many pints of beer and passed out at the bar, later getting thrown out to go home and sober up.

The drunk man shook an angry fist at the bartender while garbling on in a language that not even Armin could understand, The blonde-haired tactician watched as the bartender shut the door on the drunkard as he attempted to move back inside, only to slam his face against the door and sending him stumbling backwards before falling onto his back, nearby onlookers watching on with some in amusement.

Armin sighed and shook his head lazily, "(_Typical..._)"

"See, I told you there was a Scout wanderin' around!" Called a child's voice from behind.

Out of sheer curiosity, Armin turned around to see whose voice that belonged to, and looking down before him was a bunch of five kids, some of which being no older than seven or nine years old.

"Oh, hey kids, you all alright?" Armin asks as he settled down on one knee to their eye level.

They all nodded at once, somehow quite eagerly as a girl stepped forward, "Hey I think I remember you; were you in that fight against the monsters three years ago?"

Armin smiled, "Yeah, why'd you ask?"

The girl smiled back, "Because I remember another soldier defeating a monster that was about to attack us, then she taught that selfish businessman a lesson when he refused to let us through the gate."

"Huh, that must be one of my friends then; she mentioned a little girl thanking her after she persuaded that guy to move his wagon out of the way..."

"Yeah, I think her name was... err... Mi... Misaka...? No wait, Mikasa! That's the one!" She said with a pointed finger.

Armin chuckled a bit, "Yep, definitely her!"

Then a little girl approaches, "E-Excuse me sir, h-how long have you been a Scout for, sir?"

He couldn't help but give a small chuckle, "Around three years now."

"Can we see the badge please?" Called out another older girl from the back.

"Yeah, sure…" Armin says and pulls back his cloak over his left shoulder so the Scouts' insignia badge was on show. All of the kids stared at the insignia in awe, their eyes twinkling with inspiration as Armin pulled his cloak back over.

"That is _so_ _awesome_!" Called out the biggest boy of the group.

"I wanna be a Scout when I grow up!" Called the little girl from earlier.

"Have you killed any of those monsters outside the Walls?" "Have you?! How many?!"

Armin instantly grew more and more nervous as they continued to constantly blurt out compliments and questions, "Err, h-hey wait! Whoa! Heh heh, slow down, kids!" Armin nervously chuckled as he held his hands up in defence, "Let's break it down and start from the top, okay? I can't answer all your questions at once."

The smallest girl of the group sticks her hand up as high as she could, "Ooh, ooh, ooh! I have a question; How many times have you been outside the Walls?"

Armin paused for a second, giving off a slight chuckle, "Erm... I'm sorry but I really can't say; classified information I'm afraid."

"_Ohh..._!" The children all pouted with disappointment, then a slightly bigger boy speaks up, "Can you fly?"

The boy's companions' faces immediately lit up as they heard the boy's question, "Well... sort of. We slingshot around more than anything, but we _can_ fly for an extra burst of speed or if we have to evade a Titan."

"_Wow_!" They all said, "How fast can you go?!"

"Pretty fast actually; it's part of our training to be as speedy as possible so we can avoid getting into trouble." The tactician explained.

"That means you can run rings around the monsters, right?"

"Heheh... Now thinking about it, I've lost count on how many times I've done that...!" Armin admitted as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head, making the children laugh and giggle amongst themselves.

"Hey Armin!" A familiar voice rang out from behind, and Armin turns to see his long-time friend walking towards him with a firm smile adorning his face, "Hey I've been looking all over for you for the past minute or so, where'd you go off to anyways?"

"...Oh, that! Yeah I trailed off to this nearby bakery and got myself a snack," He explained, "I haven't tasted it yet but the food there smells absolutely good, you should try it out sometime."

Eren took a second to take a couple of sniffs and what filled his sinuses was the scent of fresh bread coming from his right, and the delicious smell ironically came from his less courageous companion, _"Ooh..._ So _that's_ what I can smell from your direction.."

The children sniggered and giggled at the Shifter's remark, and both Scouts chuckled in response, "I take it your nose is as good as anything, huh?" Armin said.

"Only if food happens to be involved in the conversation." Eren grinned.

Then the kids laughed slightly louder, and when they calmed down enough their attention was now fixated on Eren himself like metal shards to a magnet, "Are you a Scout as well, sir?" Asked a boy.

"Yep, although I've been one a few days longer than my counterpart here." He says placing a hand on Armin's left shoulder.

"Only because of a certain number of events..." The blonde tactician commented to himself.

_"Oi..._ I wouldn't push my luck if I was you _Daisy-Brains..._!" Eren says with a half-comical grin as he bore clenched teeth. As if that was part of the act, the children were set off into a giggling frenzy with one or two collapsing to the ground holding their stomachs.

Both Scouts exchanged sideward glances, "Easy to entertain, aren't they?" Eren says in a low volume as he casually pointed a thumb in the kids' direction.

Armin shrugged his shoulders, "Think of when we were their age. Although some things were pretty funny now I think of it…"

Eren lets out an amused sigh as he shook his head, "Anyways, let's get going; we've already spent at least a few good minutes playing comedian to these kids and Commander Levi would most likely have our backsides if we're not on time."

Armin let out a sigh, "Alright kids, we gotta get going now, don't want to be late on the job you know!"

The group of kids stretched their arms upwards and waved the two Scouts off, "Bye!" "Bye-bye!" "See ya later!" "Go and kick some monster butt!"

The Scouts laughed at the last compliments, "See you later and be safe!" They waved back before turning away and melting into the vast crowds.

Eren gave a slightly amused sidewards glance toward his best friend, who just about notices his friends' gaze after a few seconds, "What'cha you looking at me for?"

"You seem to have a way with kids, don't you Armin?"

The tactician gave Eren a sidewards glance, "_Soo..._? Nothing wrong with _that_, is there?"

"No! No, no problem at all!" Eren said as he raised his hands up in self-defence, "Just a bit _unusual_ to find you having a knack with entertaining children."

Armin hummed to himself in thought as he gave a sly smirk, "Well, makes good practice for when we'll be having our own kids one day..."

"Yeah, maybe so...!" Eren said, the sides of his lips curling up into a small amused grin. But as they continued walking a worrying thought creped up from the back of his mind and that humorous smirk vanished as if he had been told bad news, "Although speaking of having kids, I'm starting to get a little bit concerned about Mikasa lately..."

That caught Armin's attention and turned to him, "How so?"

"Well firstly, she's been behaving a bit odd recently, and she's been eating a bit more than she should normally do, and I haven't seen her do her routine exercises for the past few days. Would that be a problem 'cause I'm not quite ready to be having kids right now." Eren explained with some concern in his voice.

Armin pondered for a bit, placing a finger on his chin in thought, "I don't really know; it's best to ask her yourself just to be sure..."

Eren paused for a moment before letting out a huff, "Just for the record; I can see myself getting a black eye if this goes down the drain..."

"Then don't point the finger on _me_ should that happen...!" Armin said in a joking tone of voice.

"Right."

And with that done and dusted, the two Scout veterans soon went their way through the busy marketplace to reach Trost HQ some distance away. That was the place where they had kept their horses whenever they were either stationed or just for popping into town on a regular basis. If they didn't have their horses the journey would probably take all day just to simply get halfway there.

_Thirty Miles South Of Stohess District..._

At the same time, four horses made their way through thick woodland across a recently developed pathway, their riders wearing the same cloaks that bore the same Survey Corps insignia as Eren and Armin.

Normally there wouldn't be such a road through this part of the woodlands, but the approval of a mining company to seek out raw materials and minerals soon made this pathway a major supply route for transporting new equipment and machinery to mine those materials out.

But something soon came to light and two of the best Scouts of the Survey Corps, plus another two as personal escorts, were soon sent to the new mining facility under special orders from none other than Commander-In-Chief Erwin Smith himself, for such a request for high-ranking front-line officers could only mean one thing; a major discovery.

Reaching a clearing, the four riders stopped their horses a short distance from the gates of a large facility, and awaiting their arrival by the gates was the boss of the mining company placed in this specific area, flanked by a number of guards armed with either custom-made swords, knives or muskets.

The manager was a bulky middle-aged man, donning a light grey business suit with big black cowboy-style boots and grey hat, his size being on the plump side, his mustache broadened and stretched out into a pair of long pointed whiskers with a shaggy beard that fully obscured his mouth, and he had had a heavy western accent; slightly grainy after many years of working in an environment which required as loud a voice as possible.

As the Scouts disembarked their steeds, they unveiled their hoods to reveal their identities;

The overall leader of the group was none other than Captain Levi Ackerman; short on height, stern, and rarely showing any humour, Levi was nicknamed by many of his fans as 'Humanity's Greatest Soldier', and he showed such a fearsome prowess as he could easily dispatch a good number of Titans, all without as much as breaking a sweat thanks to a heightened hunter-like instinct that only those of the Ackerman family possessed. He also possessed great intelligence, planning out tactical manoeuvres through using his environment to whatever advantage he could find.

His accomplice was much taller, but to add to the Captain's dismay she also more energetic with a child-like level of curiosity with a less sane mind. This was Section Commander Hanji Zoe; a woman whose personal view of mankind's greatest enemy led her to be in charge of the capturing and scientific studying of Titans, which some have unveiled a huge amount of information about them even if it caused her to develop emotional bonds with the captive Titans, and risking her own life every time she tried to interact with the creatures.

The other two were both of the same squad and while one of them was taller than the other, they had obvious physical and personality-based differences and traits; the shorter one of the two had a full buzz-cut, had brown eyes, and had fair-tanned skin. His taller counterpart had light brown hair, green eyes and lighter skin, and both were wearing the same uniform that both Levi and Hanji wore.

They were known to the Captain and Section Commander as Connie Springer and Jean Kirstein respectively, and earlier they were just about to go out to a nearby tavern with the rest of their squad, but this sudden arrival of news had them both acting as escorts to their commanders, much to their distaste of course.

"_Oookay..._ so remind me again why we're all sent out to a cruddy old mine?" Connie asked as Jean dismounted his horse.

Planting both feet firmly on the ground, Jean turns to his long-time squad-mate and friend, "Not a clue, all I got was that these moles dug up something that they said was 'interesting to the Scout Regiment'."

"And this so-called '_something_' brought us out of our quality time back home? We could've been hittin' the local taverns and chatting up smokin' hot ladies by now!"

Jean huffed to himself. It was a long while since he had helped himself to a nice cold pint of refreshing beer, especially after a few expeditions beyond Wall Rose. But when it came to approaching members of the opposite sex he found that he needed a lending hand on how to attract a girl, but unfortunately his advances often revolve ending up with a black eye, a good smack round the face, or in certain cases a kick between the legs.

"Yeah, except unlike you I'm just opting for a good pint, haven't had any beer since before the 88th Expedition."

"And how long ago was that again?"

The taller one of the two shrugged, "I dunno, a month ago probably..."

"And while you two are here, I suggest you two shape yourselves up. The manager's by the gates there." Commander Levi said with a stern voice as he momentarily turned to the duo.

Almost instantly Jean and Connie brushed themselves off of any dirt and dust their clothes may have collected along the journey, and Connie as well doing such a thing more hastily than his taller counterpart.

As Levi turned back to the mining manager who was now walking towards the small group of four with his guards on either side, all of which keeping a sharp eye on the Scouts should they try anything suspicious. However, the chances of both sides breaking out into a nasty bloodbath were about the same as a zombie Titan emerging out of the ground and that was redeemed as impossible so both sides can lower their nerve, not much but just enough to get acquainted.

The boss of the mines pinches the tip of his hat as he lends a hand out to Levi, "You must be the Scouts I asked for then, eh? Chief Dazley's the name, and I'm in charge of this 'ere mining business."

"Captain Levi Ackerman, Commander of the Special Operations Squad of the Survey Corps." Levi announced himself as he and Chief shook hands, "This is my colleague, Section Commander Hanji Zoe, and these two back here are from my squad; personal escorts since I don't trust having some hot-shot rookies do the same job without a clue on what to do."

"Ah, of course." Chief said as he nodded in acknowledgement.

"Now cutting to the chase, may I ask why we've been summoned here in the first place."

From there, the manager turned to his bodyguards and nodded to them, and they all nodded back as two of them went to the mouth of one of the large shafts, which was mysteriously fenced off, and told the guards placed on sentry there to unlock the chains wrapped around the fence.

Hanji narrowed her eyes in both curiosity and suspicion, "(_I wonder what they've dug up in there..._)

As the group of five began to make their way toward one of the main tunnels still being mined, Chief turned to the Scouts, "Now, as ya can see here, we've gotten ourselves in a bit of a mess here; one moment we were happily going by our merry ol' business, next moment... well, if you look ahead yous can see for yerself..."

As they approached the fenced off area, they did not expect to see an enormous hole that was as wide as an international league football stadium and going down for just as deep. Around the edges of this massive void were many of the mining company's large equipment ranging from large primitive-looking excavators, cranes, pieces of railway track and open-top railway wagons, some of which just hanging on by the couplings of their trains. Far below at the bowls of the collapsed pit were more of the miner's equipment, all of which were either mangled, crushed or outright destroyed, all of which leaving mere traces of their former selves among the rubble.

His eyes going wide, Connie lets out a long hanging whistle, "Dayam... What the hell happened here? You wake up Godzilla from his beauty-sleep or something?"

"Well that's the thing..." The manager said, "We've got a lil' to no idea on what happened. All we heard was a massive curfuffle, then the ground started shakin' and before we knew it there was a big ol' hole the size of me ex-wife's _backside...!"_

Jean instantly shivered in response, "Urgh... don't even go there..." He said to himself.

"My supervisors say that 'round seventy or so miners went down with it..." Chief said in a sad voice and pulled his hat down to his chest in respect to the lives lost, "May the three Goddesses bless their souls..."

As she took in the scale of the damage in this disaster, Hanji tilted her head to one side in curiosity and lets out a soft hum as she studied a strange opening at one side of the circular chasm, "Say, Big-Boy... Any chance of where that cave leads to?"

"Hmm...? Oh yeah! Yeah, that's the other part we called ya guys in here; 'cause we found summit that may catch your interests tenfold in that here cave..." Chief explained to the Titan fanatic, then brought his gaze to the opening behind them, "That cave there leads down to the big chasm here, an' from there you'll reach your destination."

Connie and Jean looked at each other warily, "You thinking what I'm thinking, Jean?"

"Yup..." Jean said flatly, "Something I've been loathing for ever since we came here..."

_Deep inside the mineshaft..._

Having their horses tied up and a couple of guards stay put to look after their steeds, Hanji Levi, Connie and Jean soon followed Chief down into the mining shaft that led to their destination, and Hanji as usual having an excited grin with her eyes slightly darting around the mouth of the large man-made hole, the air inside getting crisp and colder for every metre they descended.

The Captain had an odd feeling about this so-called discovery of theirs; these guys said to the Survey Corps High Command that this find was something that would be labelled down as 'highly classified', then in that case than obviously it was going to involve both himself and Hanji, but what was getting on his nerves was from what these guys were describing this thing, it sounded like something that humanity might not have encountered before. Now come to think of it there was a slight fleeting chance that this _could_ relate to the Titans and their origins. Although brushing that thought aside, he didn't know what to expect but, according to just how deep the mines were, he had a chilling feeling about this.

Several tunnels, a few bumped heads and a recently created collapsed pit filled with unstable rock and mining machinery later, the mining manager soon leads the group into the tunnel where the Scouts' focus of interest was located, and far up ahead and illuminated only by wall-mounted torches, a trio of guards armed with rifles stood guard in front of a large hastily-built wooden doorway which was padlocked. The mining manager gives the sentries a nod and two of them moved aside while the third went and unlocked the big padlock that kept the web of chains together. The moment the padlock was unlocked, all the chains fell limp as the padlock was removed and the party of five proceeded to pass through the doorway and continued their trip down the mines, now noticing that the humidity was getting lower and lower for every metre they descended downwards.

Around a few metres ahead, the group of five soon approached a rough mound of rocks which all the Scouts effortlessly hopped over in only a handful of strides, leaving the overweight Chief to clamber up the rocks himself but seeing as his fitness levels had seen better days, it took him a while. As he reached the top he stood back up onto his feet and straightened himself out, brushed his clothes and shaking his beard and whiskers he may have collected along the way, "Brrhurrmm! Pardon for t' delay... Been a while since last goin' under, ya know?"

"No need for the holdup, Chief." Levi said.

Straightening his hat back into place, he picks up his light and shines the beam onto the right hand side of the tunnel. What the Scouts saw was truly out of character for rock-based minerals: Where the surrounding rock was all rough, dark grey and partially crumbly, this strange structure was smooth, dry, creamy-grey in colour, stood at least the same height as either Jean or Hanji, and it looked as if it had been placed there a few short hours ago if it weren't for it being embedded into the surrounding rock face.

Levi narrowed his eyes in slight curiosity, "Hmph, strangest thing I've seen for a while..."

"And what kind of rock behaves like _that_ then?" Hanji asked to her escorts, "Surely this must be some sort of fossil..."

"A fossil?" Connie asked out of curiosity, "What kind of fossil would this thing come from anyways?"

Hanji narrowed her eyes carefully, examining the tusk-like structure with great detail, "Appears to be a separated bone from a ribcage of sorts, although if that was the case than the tip would show evidence of it being snapped off from the breast-bone or keel-bone, depending on what kind of extinct animal we're dealing with here... could just be a tusk from an extinct species of mammoth..."

"Now we're fossil hunters? _Great..._ That's something to put on my CV when I retire...!" Jean muttered to himself, even though it was aloud for all to hear.

"That's not the only one, we found another one just like it over here, see?" Chief explained as he shone the light to reveal a slightly larger version of the same bone-like structure a few metres further down the tunnel, "Exactly like this one, only this one's a couple inches taller..."

"If a dead mammoth is enough to bring us down here, then you've convinced me of this being a waste of time..." Connie commented aloud to himself.

Section Commander Hanji giggled with delight, lightly hopping away on the spot as she eagerly clapped both hands with great anticipation, "This is _really_ getting interesting! Chief ol' boy, I believe you may have made quite the discovery here! I mean seriously; this could be actual evidence of the existence of a '_Prehistoric Titan_'!"

Without warning, the nutcase found her hair being pulled backwards by a strong hand, and her face soon turns to that of her much more less-than-unamused squad mate, "Seriously, do you _want_ to let the whole world to hear about this? Or worse that annoying voice of yours?!" Levi snapped in his characteristic monotone voice.

"Now before you get yourself overly excited Ma'am, but these two are just the first part of what we found down here." Chief says as he makes his way further down the tunnel, his searchlight revealing more and more tusk-like shapes of slightly increasing size until he leads the four Scouts into what appeared to be a massive cavernous chamber, aside from the odd dimly lit candle-lights dotted around the entire area the only light the group had were from their own searchlights.

Chief looks to the four, then back to the vast open cavern and laying his searchlight onto the floor, he takes off the cover and removed the lit candle, then heading on over to what appeared to be a small pool of water. He lowers the candle down until the flame was a centimetre from the surface of the water, and then suddenly the water catches alight, creating a massive display of light that lit up the group's part of the cave.

Standing back upright again, Chief then held his left hand half-cupped around the side of his mouth and shouted into the void, "Alright lads! Light 'em up!"

Before long, the darkness of the huge cavernous space began to die away as a multitude of flames were lit up to reveal a large collection of scaffold structures surrounding a strange-looking object. Then a short while later at least 20 or even 30 large human-sized flames were all creating enough of a bright orange glow to light up the entire cavern. Chief gulped to himself as he nervously fiddled with his tie and shirt collar. "Well, lady an' gents, this is the reason why we summoned you guys down here in the first place... the aptly-dubbed 'Discovery of the Century'."

What lay before the Scouts themselves literally caught them by surprise, for what they saw was indeed what remained of an enormous carcass, but what the remains belonged to really caught them off guard by a long mile; at least somewhere over 50 or even 60 metres in length, resting on its right side with its four feet toward the Scouts, around 20 to 30 metres in height from foot to shoulder, some of its ribcage, neck and tail partially showing underneath what was left of its thick hide, the rest of the corpse having lost all its moisture eons ago and its skin and flesh shrinking down to the skeleton itself.

This was what remained of a gigantic animal, a creature resembling something that was akin to a bulky sauropod dinosaur but greatly scaled up to near-biblical proportions. The length of its pillar-like legs reaching at least 25 metres from the foot to the shoulder, the remnants of the neck extending outwards toward the far end of the cavern, and the head itself was resting fully upright, all forms of flesh having long since rotted away and leaving a magnificently preserved skull, mandible and several neck vertebrae.

Even Levi's eyes went wide with a mix of wonder and surprise as his two escorts' jaws literally dropped with their eyes growing wide, "For the love of Momma's home-made cookies..." Connie gaped aloud.

"By the Goddesses... is it even possible to reach that size, even by evolutionary standards...?" Jean said, not once did he take his eyes off of the giant carcass.

Levi turned to his light-brown haired subordinate, "Well, what _do_ you see? 'Cause all I see here are the remains of some giant beast, and one whose tomb is currently located some thirty miles away from Stohess District…!"

Jean instantly turned to his superior officer with a nervous gulp, "Err, m-my bad, sir... it's just that, I thought-"

"You 'thought'?" Humanity's best soldier eyed him up with cold-hearted intimidation, "If you were expecting a nice cozy life within the safety of the Capital then you've picked the _wrong_ Regiment to join up; did you forget what the Scout Regiment does? Because this is an example of what we do; expecting unexpected surprises and dealing with them."

"Yet I'm _still_ thankful I didn't join the MP's three years ago..." He commented to himself, "Otherwise I'd be bored out of my mind by now!"

Connie gulped hard as droplets of sweat beaded down the sides of his face, his gaze drifting onto the exposed ribs and backbone and receiving a cold chill up his own spine, "Well... A-At least we know about one thing right now..."

"And what's that?" Jean asked.

"...The Titans weren't the only creatures to get big..."

"Nor were they the first!" Hanji's voice rang out, drawing all eyes onto her as she turned to her three comrades plus the mining manager, her face turning serious, "I believe that, judging by the state the carcass is in, this big fella must have died around several thousand years ago; if I'm correct there was a total lack of oxygen in the air so decomposition was greatly reduced if not totally stopped, and with all moisture in this creature's body completely gone, that also must have preserved the carcass even further..." The team's resident mad-scientist calculated with her finger to her chin, eyes narrowing in deep thought as she paced back and forth.

"And judging by its enormous size I reckon this animal used to exist at a time when the world was able to support an ecosystem revolving around super-large megafauna, and this creature must have been among the last of its kind to die off when its habitat altered too much, their large size once being their greatest strength now becoming the very cause of their ultimate downfall..."

Levi just watched as his accomplice continued to rant on about the corpse, a look of boredom creeping up onto his face as he stifled a yawn. As he turned his gaze to the head of the long fallen beast, his sharp eyes notice a collection of deep holes in the legs, neck and some even on the skull, it were as if...

...Wait a minute...

The sudden realization hit him like a ton of bricks; the only thing he visibly showed was a raised eyebrow as he figured out what those holes were.

He narrowed his eyes in suspicion as he turned to Hanji, "Hey, Four-Eyes; if this giant beast died from environmental changes, then why do I see deep puncturing wounds all over that thing's head and neck?"

As if she had drunk ten cups of high-caffeine coffee, she snaps her head to the direction of the dead beast's own faster than the blink of an eye, her corneas now shrunk to dots and her lips puckered up. A few tense seconds rolled by before Levi knew what the Section-Commander was about to do, "Oi... Hanji, I _know_ that look you're giving there so don't-"

***ZOOM!***

"...Even think about it..."

Both the Commanders' escorts looked on as Hanji took off like the psychedelic roadrunner that she was behaving like, of course her ODM-Gear giving her that cartoon-ish level of acceleration, "Dayam... Never knew she could take off that fast..." Connie commented.

"Or go at that speed without _spraining_ herself! I still remember the last time she did that..."

"Hmph, you'd be surprised; Personally, I don't call her Professor Crazy-Eyes without a good reason..." Levi said before setting off to join up with his deranged companion, leaving both Jean and Connie dead in their tracks. After a few seconds they finally found out they were being left behind inside a long-dead monster's tomb and, scurrying to the safety of their superiors as if their lives depended on it, they instantly flew off to their leader's side for some reassurance.

Hanji hits the brakes just metres from the giant animal's lower mandible, creating a long skid mark of just under ten metres long. Once the dust behind her settled she instantly took to observing the strange holes along the head and neck, repositioning her glasses with her fingers. from her perspective, the unusual wounds appear to be nearly as deep as a few inches but, unfortunately for the Scout scientist, she was unable to determine if there was any sign of healing. Nonetheless she knew this part of the topic was going to be revised under further scientific analysis in the near future.

Her eyes narrowed as her brain worked overtime to study and determine who or what would've been responsible for the damage this creature had received. Naturally an opinion of hers would drift to this being the result of a Titan attack, but the layout of the puncture holes instantly threw that idea out of the window; as Titans were obviously human-like, the general shape of their bite would be circular, this was made by another creature with a skull and mandible design that was long and pointed, like a crocodile.

Then it hit her; her earlier claims of this animal existing in a time where super-sized megafauna were the norm might be a clue to something far more sinister living at that same era of time, and if a Titan couldn't have inflicted those wounds, then what did? From her angle of the entire head she could see that the beast was most likely to be a herbivore, showing no evidence that the creature possessed any teeth, but whatever killed this giant _did_ have teeth and had used them to great effect, probably inflicting massive injuries and letting its prey succumb to exhaustion and blood loss; a very effective method of conserving energy when hunting. The only theory that could fit how their deceased finding lost its fight for survival.

"I think... that the big guy must have been _actively_ killed by something else, chances are that those punctures in the hide and bones were the mark of a very large predator, likely to reach sizes more akin to a Titan." She concluded to herself, although Levi and their escorts had managed to get to her once the mad Titan fanatic began to speak.

"Wait, you mean there was once something _bigger_ and _fiercer_ than a Titan?!" Connie cried out in a nervous voice, "Oui, nightmares here I come..."

Hanji places a finger on her chin in thought, "Hmmm... Maybe, this was the aftermath of an attack made by..." She then narrows her eyes for a more dramatic show, "A Titan-sized _super-predator_..."

Levi looked towards his crazed accomplice with a raised eyebrow, "A '_super-predator_'? Hmph... now come to think of it, maybe we _did_ manage to get lucky after all..." The captain spoke out.

Hanji snapped her gaze towards humanity's elite soldier as if he had butchered one of her captive Titans right in front of her, "What'cha mean '_we got lucky..._'?! Don't you realize we're on the verge of discovering evidence of a lost world that once existed _eons_ before our time?! And where there were once animals the size of _Titans_ roaming the Earth _millions of years ago_?!"

Levi's eyebrows drooped slightly, "Obviously... but the point I'm getting at is; when this creature died, it's killer probably died sometime after, thus leaving behind animals that we are more compatible with today..."

Hanji froze on the spot, bewildered and completely taken by surprise by the captain's own explanation on this current topic with short but accurate detail, "Wow, never took you for the archaeological type, Levi..."

"Never was..."

"But... now we've got ourselves a new specimen to play around with, maybe we could set up a museum after we've tinkered around with this big beauty, what'cha think?" Hanji grinned with excitement, her thoughts ringing around as an image of a crowd of people looking in awe and wonder of the creature's enormous skeleton overlooking one of the many towns within Wall Rose or even having their find mounted within a museum in the centre of the Capital, a large plaque showing the words 'Discovery of the Century' encrypted onto it.

"I do understand our current position on this whole topic and your future long-term ambitions for our long-deceased guest here, _Commander _Hanji... but don't you also realize that once word gets out that we've found what was left of a giant monster right below our very feet, they'll say that this is a publicity stunt to frighten the entire populace unless we bring this monster's bones out and present it to the Imperial Government itself." He explained, both escorts nodding to each other as they understood what would happen should such tight security buckle and news gets slipped out.

Hanji faltered as she tried to find the right words to hit back with, "But...B-But..."

"And another thing; if we were to make _'Discovery'_ here officially public then we would have to do that with very careful steps and extreme caution, any slip up would spell disaster on our part."

As he finished, his companion could only stare at him with wide eyes and a look of desperation before she slumped over in defeat, her head lowering as a deflating sigh escaped her lips, "_Alright..._"

Levi huffed to himself in satisfaction before returning his attention to the giant animal's mummified carcass before him, eyes narrowing as questions began popping up in his brain, "(_If you _were_ brought down by another monster that's got a taste for blood, then I wonder why did he leave you in this state in the first place... Hmm, I wonder how many of your buddies are in the ground and rotting away like you..._)"

Then suddenly, his eyes widen when a brainwave of realization hit his mind, somehow sending a slight shivering chill of concern and worry up the normally emotionless and usually collected squad commander's spine, "(_What if your kind still walk the Earth__...__? And what if you_ do_ decide to pay us a visit...?!_)"

_**To Be Continued...**_

_**Author's Note:**_

_**AT FECKIN' LAST! This chapter was a bloody pain to be working on and the added strain of actively looking for work? That's a big fault on my part for neglecting this story.**_

_**But nonetheless, I've finally managed to FINISH this goddamn chapter!**_

_**Fingers crossed for the next chapter!**_

_**Until next time!**_


End file.
